Akai Hayate

So here's another OVA stranded on the wrong side of the Digital Divide: Akai Hayate (Red Hayate), a four-parter from 1991. As far as I can tell, it is based on an original story by Yamasaki Osamu, who is better known as a director. His directing efforts include Gallery Fake, Yotoden (OVA and movie), Hakkenden (both series), and Hakuoki (all versions). Akai Hayate was licensed by the now-defunct Central Park Media and released in English on VHS tape; a rip of those tapes was released by ARR, minus seven minutes of episode 2. This is a new version, based on the Japanese laserdiscs, and complete.

Akai Hayate tells the tale of a secret ninja organization called Shinagara which has controlled Japan for "thousands of years." Its strongest warriors use "Shadow Armor"(mecha-like suits constructed from magic and shadows) and named attacks to fight:

As the story begins, Kanuma Hayate, the son of Shinogara's leader, Kanuma Tanzou, suddenly and inexplicably assassinates his father. As a result, Shinogara splits into warring factions, with three of its six Shadow Warriors (Sanezuna, Miyabi, and Genbu) supporting the new leader, Ranotei, and the other three (Hayate, Date Ikkaku, and Satomi Shuri) in rebellion. The Shinogara loyalists hunt down and mortally wound Hayate. To survive, he transfers his spirit into the body of his sister, Shiori. She must now evade Shinogara's myriad assassins and unravel the mystery behind her father's death, with the intermittent help of the other rebel warriors. The show has a very somber tone, with lots of violence and violent deaths. (There's a bit of nudity and sex too, typical of an OVA from that era.) As might be expected in a civil war, there are no winners and no happy ending.
 
The cast consists of stellar character actors. The gravelly-voiced narrator was played by Tesshou Genda, who played Moloch in the Azazel-san franchise, Colonel Muto in Joker Game, the narrator in Kyoukai no Rinne, and the title role in New Laughing Salesman. Kantou faction leader Date Ikkaku was played by Yao Kazuki, best known for his lead role as Dark Schneider in Bastard!! and his recurring role as Franky in One Piece. Nansou faction leader Satomi Shuri was voiced by Gouda Hozumi, who played one of the leads in the Sengoku-era Sanada 10 series.  Seki Toshihiko, who voiced the fighter Nagase Jun in the first episode, played Riki in Ai no Kusabi, Sanzo in all the Saiyuuki TV series, and the title roles in Alexander (Reign the Conqueror) and Kaiketsu Zorro. The director, Tsuruyama Osamu, is better known as an animator; he did the character designs for Wolf Guy, for example.

Because the ARR rip was incomplete and subsize, M74 and I had long wanted to do a new version. We enlisted Zalis of ReDone Subs, who transcribed the existing subtitles and filled in the missing seven minutes. He also did a cursory check of the translation, which is quite liberal. We haven't tried to correct the usual R1 compressions and omissions, beyond the obvious clunkers. Iri filled in a couple of missing lines of the episode 1 insert song; M74 timed; I edited and typeset; Juggen styled the songs; and Nemesis and VigorousJammer did QC. M74 encoded from laserdisc images provided by an anonymous benefactor. This is an Orphan-M74-ReDone joint release. (Sorry, AniDB mods, but all three groups really did do significant work on it.)

While Akai Hayate feels like it consists of recycled elements, that may just be a modern perspective. I'm sure it felt much fresher when first released in 1991. You can get it from the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.

Cosprayers

So… Cosprayers. Seriously? You might ask why Orphan and ReDone are resubbing such a maligned show. Call it the tyranny of good intentions.

After working on Kiteseeker's Blu-Ray release of Hanaukyo Maid Tai, I was interested in doing Blu-Ray versions of another M.O.E. (Masters of Entertainment) show that I remembered fondly, Smash Hit! A Blu-Ray box set of Smash Hit! and its sibling series Love Love? and Cosprayers had just been released, so the idea seemed like a real possibility. Unfortunately, the Blu-Ray encodes were poor upscales of the DVDs. As a result, no one else was interested. Then DVD ISOs turned up for Cosprayers, and I thought that a softsub, full resolution version of that series would be a good place to start. It was, sort of – you can't understand Smash Hit! without Cosprayers – but it's pretty forgettable on its own.

Dating from 2004, Cosprayers wants to be an ecchi parody of a mahou shoujo show crossed with a sentai ranger show, but it only gets the ecchi part right, mostly in the form of endless panty shots. Rather than a parody, it's a straightforward instantiation of all the clichés in both genres.

The plot is totally disposable. Evil minions of the Woman of the Night want to release her from her magical incarceration so that she can destroy the world. Opposing her are members of the International Shaman Organization (ISO), the five conveniently coded Cosprayers. Each is identified by uniform color, culture, idiosyncrasy, and weapon.

From left to right:

• Remuria Sharia (Rabian Rayer), an idol type. She likes to dance and sing and is afraid of growing up. Her background culture is Arabian, her color is purple, and her weapon is a laser bazooka.
• Scarlet Church (Sister Rayer), a nun type. She is the de facto leader of the Cosprayers. She treats the novice Miko Rayer with disdain until Koto proves her worth. Scarlet's background culture is European, her color is blue (despite her name), and her weapon is a three-bladed staff.
• Hoshino Koto (Miko Rayer), a priestess type. She is a cosplayer and wannabe heroine who is accidentally inducted into the Cosprayers world through an interdimensional portal. Koto's background culture is Japanese, her color is red, and her weapon is a sword.
• Priscillaria Shararan (Sari Rayer), an Asian beauty type. She is a defensive specialist and a lover of curry. She has a dog named Inusuke, who was lifted straight out of Rizelmine with a change of neckerchief. Priscillaria's background culture is Indian, her color is yellow, and her weapon is a veil.
• Iko Sue (Dian Rayer), a warrior type. She has a hand puppet that she uses for communication. Iko's background culture is Native American, her color is green, and her weapon is a bow-and-arrow or whip.

And here they are in their leotards, er, Base Suits:

In addition, there are two apprentice Cosprayers, In and You, who are twins with a Chinese background culture. They use talismans to fight.

The central theme of the show is that the girls must learn to work in harmony (or at least sing in harmony) in order to banish evil. All of this is taken very seriously; only in some of the DVD extra episodes and in the previews is the absurd nature of the premise used for a little comedy or satire.

In fairness, the show has grown on me. There are some good gags, particularly in the DVD-only episodes. The previews tend to be wonderfully snarky; for example, the twins comment that Inusuke seems to have learned some new tricks in Japan, presumably on Rizelmine, where there was some questionable inter-species behavior. There are also unintentionally hilarious moments, like the broken animation in various episodes and the constant, pulled-out-of-the-butt plot twists. (These provide the backbone for the producer-heroine's ongoing angst in Smash Hit!) But it's still thin gruel.

The heroine, Hoshino Koto, aka Miko Rayer, is played by Matsuki Miyu, who has an extensive resume in featured roles. The strongest Cosprayer, Scarlet Church, aka Sister Rayer, is played by Kobayashi Sanae, who has starred as Lucy in Elfen Leid, Allen Walker in D.Gray-man, and Touya Akira in Hikaru no Go. The token male, Crus-sama, is played by Sakurai Takahiro. He has gone on to play the lead in many recent series, including Uchouten Kazoku, Fuwa no Amu, and of course, Polar Bear Café. (Thus do splendid careers from small beginnings grow.) Many of the other voice actors have long and illustrious resumes, almost always in better properties than Cosprayers.

The original translation is by Triad Fansubs, and their scathing comments in their releases' credits indicate that they hated the show. I OCRed the subtitles; Yogicat timed them; Iri translation checked the first four episodes; I edited and typeset; Calyrica and Nemesis QCed; and M74 encoded from R2J ISOs. Zalis of Redone Subs did a lot of the heavy lifting. He checked the dialog for all the episodes as well as the song lyrics; the changes were extensive. He also translated the movie promo and karaoked the OP and ED. Cosprayers would still be in limbo, where perhaps it deserves to be, without his help, so this is a joint project between Orphan and ReDone. This release includes a couple of extras: non-credit OP and ED and a promotional "trailer" for Cosprayers the Movie. Zalis translated the trailer; I timed, edited, and typeset it; and Xenath3297 QCed.

The episodes have been renumbered sequentially, while retaining the TV numbering for purists, because Cosprayers' sibling show Smash Hit! refers to specific episodes of Cosprayers by sequential episode number. We hope to get around to Smash Hit! One of These Days™. Love Love? has been licensed and released in the US on DVD and digital video.

So… Cosprayers. Seriously. As one of the QCs said, "It may not be good, but at least it's short."